Nesting

Curating a Home

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

Most retirees, at some point, reconsider their living options, because, well… life is different now. Once the kids have left the nest and we are no longer tethered to a job, we start to reevaluate our living space. We don’t need to be within a reasonable commute to work anymore. We don’t need four bedrooms and three bathrooms now that the kids have homes of their own. And do we really want to continue to maintain that large yard? What fit our lives for years, may no longer meet the needs of our retired, empty nest lifestyle. Now what?

The beauty of it is, you are free to move wherever you like. It could be closer to grandkids. It could be seeking warmer weather. Maybe it is finally living where your heart takes you, in the woods or near the ocean. For many retirees, it is downsizing. The key is to evaluate your priorities and determine what would make this phase of your life richer and more meaningful. For us, it was downsizing, moving closer to town and being near a lake. Wherever you move, you have to start again… with four blank walls.

Four blank walls

Four blank walls. They could be anywhere: a doctor’s office, a nursing home, a restaurant… or a brand-new house. They are just walls. What transforms them into a space that welcomes you? A space that makes you want to put your feet up. A feeling of warmth that prompts you to settle in and have one more cup of coffee. Have you ever noticed that when you walk into some houses, they feel comfy/cozy and make you want to sink into a chair for a long chat? Others feel sterile and stiff. How do we transform a house into a home?

If you have lived anywhere long enough, you have lots of experiences and memories created in your home. It holds you like a worn pair of comfy slippers. You know which doors squeak, you smile when you see that the ding in the ceiling from when your husband swung a golf club a little too high in the house, or the pen marks on the door trim marking a child’s growth each year. You remember the family dinners, the holidays celebrated and the games played on the living room floor. The walls resonate with warm memories. It is the life lived within the walls that transforms a house into a home. If you move, that starts over with just four blank walls. Such was the case with us.

I finally got up the nerve to put a nail in this blank wall last week and hung this one sole picture in our guest bathroom.

Transforming those four blank walls

We moved into our new house last fall. We spent hours with the drafter and contractor trying to construct a home that fit our needs as retired empty nesters. We wanted a house that was cozy and easy to maintain, but large enough to host family gatherings comfortably. We had the opportunity to pick out the cupboards, flooring, lighting, fixtures and a million other decisions, as it was being built. A new home is lovely and beautiful but also feels a little sterile.

You would think that we would have felt right at home once we moved the last piece of furniture in. The property felt like home since it was rebuilt on the same land I grew up on, but the house needed time. It needed to be curated. Shortly after we moved in, we took a trip to the ocean, then it was prep for the holidays, family visited from out of town, and then we spent some of the winter in Arizona. On top of this, daily life continues.

And so, we find ourselves in spring and many of our walls are still bare because I hate to put nail holes in the fresh, clear new walls. What if I change my mind, or it isn’t the right height, and I leave an extra hole? Hence, the bare walls, which cause conversations to echo.

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We bought this cabinet shortly after we got married. It has traveled with us from house to house. I covered it with milk paint and distressed it several years ago. The bird and bee nests are “roasidea” finds. The pitcher was a gift from my mom, and I recently scored this mirror at a vintage shop in town.

I love shopping at Home Goods as much as anyone and nothing can beat the convenience of Amazon and Wayfair for shopping online. But a home is not curated through retail shopping. It is built slowly, over time. I like to put together a blend of less expensive purchased items that make a house look updated, along with a few investment pieces and then the final touches are the very things that give your home personality and make it unique and interesting. And they do not happen overnight.

These final touches come three ways. First are the shared experiences and memories that occur within the walls, which I have written about before in the post The House that Built a Family. A house just feels more like home once you have hosted family and friends there.

The walls of our new home are starting to resonate with laughter and warm memories after hosting a couple brunches this spring.

The second thing that makes a house into a comfortable home is that there are signs of life going on in them. A loaf of bread is cooling on the counter. There are framed photos of family and friends. A fire is dancing in the fireplace. A knitting project sits in a basket, or a book is waiting to be read. Perhaps it is a plant thriving in the window. Life is happening. There is a heartbeat to the home.

The third thing that transforms a house into a home are the unique treasures we decorate with. Items that we love, value and have collected over the years. These are the things that have meaning to us… not just something picked off of a store shelf. We remember the trip we were on when we found the porcelain birds in an antique store on a rainy day at the ocean. It could be the tablescape we put together with Roadsidea we gathered with our sister on an outdoor adventure. It might be the treasured pitcher that your mom gave you years ago that reminds you of her.

When we moved, we had years of Stuff that we had to sift through and decide what would make the move. Years of good memories. I had to be ruthless as I eliminated items that no longer served us. I could not keep all of the glassware my mom gave me, so I had to choose the most significant. The ones that fit my style and evoked warm memories every time I looked at them. The hard part was releasing the rest.

The sewing machine cover my friend made for me set the bright colors for my office. The paper flowers remind me of the class my sister and I took together to learn how to make them (left). The shelf on the right tells part of my story, from gifts special people gave me, like the treasured book from my mom, to the mementos from trips (right).
I found the birds when DIL #2 and I went antiquing on a rainy afternoon at the ocean. I am filled with that wonderful memory each time I look at them (left). The vintage school bell is from Mr. U’s aunt when she taught in a one room schoolhouse (right). We ring it when we want to gather a big crowd together for dinner.
We salvaged the door that my grandpa put in the previous home over 65 years ago (left). We also had an accent wall built from the pine paneling in the previous home that my dad and grandpa milled. The shelf was the former fireplace mantel (right).

Curating a house into a home

Consider what treasured items make you smile and fill you up emotionally when you look at them. The ones that feel like a warm hug. If they are tucked in a cupboard or some place for safe keeping, pull them out because those are the very pieces that transform a house into a home. While they may not be as gorgeous as the stuff off of a Pottery Barn shelf, they are much more unique, chock full of character, and most importantly, they hold our stories.

A house is lived in immediately. A home is curated over time by filling it with meaningful items and happy memories. What are your treasured pieces… the things that make your heart sing every time you look at them? If they are hiding in a closet or basement, bring them out. If they need a fresh coat of paint, slap some on. Maybe it is the photo that you have been meaning to get enlarged and framed (guilty). Or perhaps it is the heirloom dishes that you hesitate to use for fear of breaking them. Pull them out, clean them off, fix them up and enjoy them because these are the very items that transform a house into a home.

Now I am going to go pound another hole in the wall. Happy decorating!

This Christmas cactus brings me joy because it began as a start off my mom’s plant.

Lights Out

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

Our favorite weather saying in the PNW is, “if you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes.” That is especially true in March and April. I can’t complain, because we’ve had a relatively mild winter this year. But just when we were thinking about crocuses popping up, we got hit with high winds and our worst snowstorm of the year. Of course, it happens when Mr. U is out of town.

The night the lights went out

Mr. U and I had been on a short trip, and I was flying back early. My flight was delayed several hours so I ended up not getting home until 2:00 a.m. during a high windstorm. (Just for the record, I HATE turbulence in a plane.) Branches broke, trees snapped and the wind gusts made it a challenge to keep my car on the road while driving home from the airport. When I pulled around the corner into the bay, I noticed that it was exceptionally dark. None of the neighbors had their lights on. Hum.

Inevitably, the wind had knocked the electricity out. Now I had to enter a dark house that was still fairly new to me, in the middle of the pitch-black night during a powerful windstorm. I pulled into the driveway and sat in my car while I considered my options. Earlier in the evening, my sister texted me about the storm and offered to have me stay with her. I was wishing I had taken her up on her offer at this point. I considered getting a hotel, but I don’t even know if you can check into a hotel in the middle of the night. Nope. I just needed to put on my big girl panties and go into the dark house with my cell phone light that had a low battery. It was cold and scary. Your imagination can get carried away in the dark of the night.

Fortunately, I keep a lot of candles (both real and battery operated) around the house.

I was able to get a couple candles lit to find my way around the house and was relieved to find that there were no boogeymen lurking in the closet or under the bed. (You never outgrow some fears.) I piled every blanket I could find on the bed and listened to the wind howl outside before I fell into a fitful sleep. When I woke up in the morning the lights were back on and the heat was pumping through the house. It lasted for a full day and then we got a snowstorm and out went the electricity again. This time for 24 hours.

24 hours off the grid

You do not realize how much you use electricity until you do not have it. Fortunately, our gas fireplaces work without electricity, so I was able to keep the house reasonably warm. The first several hours I was totally frustrated. I kept flipping on switches, forgetting that it would not do anything, and turning on the faucet that could not produce water.

I went to the store to stock up on water, batteries and some food that did not need to be cooked. Then I called Mr. U to complain. There was no running water, no lights, no heat, no internet, no T.V. and you can’t even charge your phone, Kindle, or laptop. We are way too dependent on our devices. Once I accepted all of this, I settled in.

A cozy, peaceful evening at home off the grid.

Turns out we don’t need all of those electric devices to enjoy an evening at home. It was cozy and oh so quiet. I have a couple little chargeable lights that cast a nice glow. Between those and the candlelight, I was able to settle in under a blanket and spent the evening reading and writing by hand. My blood pressure dropped, my heartbeat slowed and my soul was able to catch up with my body. It was exactly what I needed. There is peace in the pause that we seldom allow ourselves time to lean into.

It was so nice to have a couple of these little rechargeable touch lights. Note to self, keep them charged in the winter.

Back in the ole days

When I was a kid, growing up in this very spot we now live, the electricity was guaranteed to go out every winter… several times. We got more snow and colder temps. back then. I specifically remember one year when I was around seven years old, and the electricity went out for five days. I thought it was magical to sit by the fire and read by candlelight. I imagined myself to be Laura Ingalls Wilder from the Little House on the Prairie books that I devoured. The one negative that I remember is that the porcelain toilet seat was really, really cold! I am quite sure my mom and dad remember a lot more negatives.

I can’t imagine having the electricity out that long with five kids at home. They pulled out the camp stove, put blankets over doorways and stocked up on water, firewood and candles. No battery-operated lights or candles in those days. We did not miss our electronic devices either since there weren’t any to miss, other than the T.V. and radio. (I am starting to sound really old.)

Maybe we need more nights off the grid

I guess I forgot how much our electronic devices control our brains… until I didn’t have them for 24 hours. It shocked me how restless I was at first. I was anxious and wondering what I was going to do for a whole night. But once the quiet took over and settled into my bones, I felt such peace. I would not recommend coming home from a trip at 2:00 a.m. in a windstorm to find your soul. But maybe we should schedule a no devices day every week. Kind of like a sabbath from electronic devices and social media. Could I do it consistently? Could you?

Being without electricity is a good excuse to stay in bed a little longer and enjoy a slow morning.

Cheers to the retirement years!

Looking Back on 2025 and my WOTY

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

January is already over and it is time to look at 2025 in the rearview mirror. I hope you are looking back at it with a smile and fond memories. Last year was a year of change for us. A year that moved our retirement life in a new direction. It put me on a roller coaster of emotions as we evaluated our retirement lifestyle and made big steps towards rightsizing it. Scary steps that turned our little world upside down.

We knew that change was in the air, so I chose the word “rightsizing” to be My 2025 Word of the Year (WOTY). I hoped that it would guide our decisions and move us to a retirement lifestyle that fit our unique interests and needs. At this point, Mr. U and I have both been retired for several years, we are in our 60’s and have whittled down how we want to move forward in this phase of life. So, 2025 was our year of trying to rightsize our retirement life. Fair warning – photo bomb ahead. ⚠️

The year 2025 in review

Like all of you, we celebrated birthdays.

My dad’s 98th and my 29th!

We shared holidays with family.

Holidays are just more fun with kids (little and big).

And we welcomed a precious new grandson into the family.

Son #3 and his lovely wife, daughter and new baby boy.
Sons #3 and #4 (who are fraternal twins) holding the big sister and her little bro (left). Son #1 and his lovely wife made the trip back west to see their new nephew (right).

And amidst the joy was heartbreaking loss for our little city.

A city salutes its heroes.

Best trip in 2025

We did not do a lot of travel because we were so busy at home, but the best trip of 2025, hands down, was our trip to the Oregon Coast with all of our kids. We have done it for two years in a row now. Does that make it a tradition? While it was a busy year, I am so glad we made time for this. It is the stuff that gives family a common bond, shared laughter and memories to carry you for a lifetime.

Going crabbing and having a seafood boil is one of the highlights of the trip.
The whole crazy gang took time from their busy lives to make the trip.

Biggest changes in 2025

We spent a good hunk of 2025 preparing to sell our home. We went through every single item we owned and determined if it still served us as we moved forward into a smaller space. Hard decisions. It took me on an emotional roller coaster as I relived my life with each piece.

I had to decide whether or not to keep the afghan that I knit for a 4-H project in high school (left). I wrote about my struggle with whether to keep the wedding china in the post, Downsizing Dilemma: The Wedding China.
I am happy to announce that my lovely DIL #2 (left) decided to take the wedding china. She created this gorgeous table setting with some of it for Thanksgiving.

Once I was done sorting and packing, I mopped up my tears and we were ready. We said farewell to The House that Built a Family. It was a home that we loved for 24 years and held us during life’s storms – both physical and emotional.

We said goodbye to our house up on the hill.
It never looked better than when we were getting ready to sell it. Funny how that works.
So many good memories there.

In the midst of preparing our house to sell, we were also busy making the constant decisions on the new house we were building. We built it on the same property where I grew up, next to a little lake.

The years had deteriorated the original home to such an extent that we needed to start from scratch.
We wanted our home to be cozy enough for the two of us, but big enough for family gatherings.
I am thrilled to be back on the little lake that has so many good memories for me growing up.

As if this wasn’t enough going on, we added in buying a small condo in Arizona last winter. It was in our retirement plan for several years. We had been looking for a while, but then everything lined up and so we needed to move on it.

Our escape plan from the cold, gray winter weather.

Daily life continues on

And in between all of the big life changes, daily life still went on. It always surprises me how life does not stop when I have a big, major hairy transition going on. There were still burdens to carry and the house still needed to be cleaned, the wash done, groceries bought, meals prepared and health issues that had to be followed up on. But there were also coffee dates to go on, micro trips to take and life to be lived.

In between all of the turmoil and change, I made sure to squeeze in coffee dates with my wonderful friend (left) and wine time with my amazing sister (right). Therapy for my soul.

Looking back over 2025

As I look back over 2025, I realize how much life and change we packed in. No wonder I am tired! Perhaps my 2025 WOTY should have been change, because there was so much of it. Yet it helped to control it by keeping the concept of “rightsizing” in the back of my brain through it all. It reminded me to constantly ask, what was right for us, at this stage in our lives? What did we want the rest of our foreseeable retirement life to look like? What can we do now that we may not be able to do in 5 or 10 years? It helped to drive decisions. Thus, 2025 was the year we spent working to bring our planned retirement lifestyle to fruition.

As you look back over the past year, what were your 2025 highlights? Did it reflect movement towards the life you hoped to live at this point? Do you feel like your life is the right size for you? If not, what changes do you need to make? Maybe it is just a few little tweaks or maybe it is a big hairy change.

My 2026 WOTY

I don’t have one. Nope. Nada. I decided not to pick a WOTY this year. It is more a lifestyle that I want to cultivate, and that cannot be captured in one word. After the frenzy of 2025 and all of the changes it brought, I am ready to settle in and nest. I want to live a little slower, more intentional life. I plan to treat my health like a part-time job. And I need more time to sit by the lake to reflect and just be. I want to purposefully spend more of my time on what feeds my soul. We spent 2025 setting up our retirement lifestyle and now I just want to sink into it.

Do you have a WOTY for 2026, or are you feeling more like me and want to slow down and just live life well and appreciate the moments? Either way, may your 2026 hold lots of laughter, joy and be a life lived well.

Cheers to the retirement years!

Little Lake Life

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

Moving isn’t just about a physical change of location. It often includes a change of lifestyle or embracing a new phase in life. This summer we didn’t just move from our home of 24 years; we also moved to a different lifestyle. We moved from our wonderful deep-rooted memories enmeshed in the large home where we raised our kids while balancing our busy careers to our current lifestyle as retired, empty nesters. It wasn’t just about the physical location; it was about shedding our old selves in order to embrace our new selves.

Our new home is smaller and much closer to town. It has an open floor plan to accommodate larger family gatherings. Instead of sitting up on a hill, it is tucked in the bay of a small lake. Instead of being up a long gravel driveway, it is on a paved (albeit busy) country road, just two minutes from town. It is also coming full circle for me. You see, I grew up on the very property where we built our new home. This was no ordinary move.

Settle in for a story

Over 65 years ago my grandpa acquired several acres of property through a bartering deal with a couple of widows, when times were tough and people worked with what they had available. My grandpa was a skilled carpenter, and these two widows needed a new roof put on their house. They did not have the money to pay him, but they did have some property that they would trade him for his skills. It was a lovely piece of ground on a small lake. My grandpa built a house on the hill and gave my parents the piece down by the water.

It was here, on a section of this property that my dad and grandpa built the beautiful, two-bedroom, one bath home that my five siblings and I grew up in. Back then money was tight, so they did the work themselves and bartered for jobs they could not do. They hauled logs from the hillside, which served as both the framing and exterior walls. They brought in a small mill to cut the knotty pine walls, trim and cupboards for the interior. They used layers of cardboard for insulation. My dad hauled rock to make the cement walks. It was a labor of love, done on a shoestring.

One of the first winters in their new home. You can see my brothers looking out the window.

It was such a wonderful place to be a kid, with the lake in front of the house and the Portal to the magical forest behind it. We grew up playing king of the mountain on a large inner tube while balancing on the waves in the summer and skating on the lake under the moon in the winter. We invented our own games and made houses out of limbs and rocks. My siblings and I are still close. Perhaps because we shared such a small space growing up. We did not care because it was packed with love, security and warmth. Life was good.

Even my kids have great memories visiting my parents over the holidays and spending many a Christmas Eve in that little lake house, crowded in between their cousins eating from the huge buffet of food and opening gifts. This cozy knotty pine home was part of their history too.

The house as I remember it growing up (left). We ate many meals out on that picnic table. The house in its heyday (right). The sunroom was added on years later.

Fast forward

Several years ago, my mom had some health issues, so she and my dad decided to move to a 55+ neighborhood in town. My 98-year-old dad still lives in their house in town. The little house on the lake sat vacant for a few years and then served as temporary housing for a couple of their grandkids. However, it was slowly deteriorating. It was weighing on my dad, so after my mom passed, he gifted the house and surrounding property to his children. Everyone was reluctant to take on the house. It was an archive of good memories, but very difficult to live in. And it needed a ton of work.

This all occurred during a time when Mr. U and I were considering downsizing and moving closer to town. I had a few “musts” for any future home we moved to. One being that it needed to have two bathrooms. (I know, first world problems. Or, more likely, it is from sharing one bathroom with seven other people all of those years growing up.) I also wanted a creative workspace/office. Lastly, we wanted enough room to entertain our large family, but not so big it was hard to maintain. We were supposed to be downsizing, after all. Then… the little lake house became an option.

The little lake house sat vacant for a few years.

Could we take on the house and the major project needed to renovate it? The property is beautiful, and my dad really wanted it to stay in the family. The timing was right for us, so we decided to tackle it. Our initial intent was to do a major remodel and add on. But as we started to explore the structure of the house, we realized that the log walls would not be able to continue to support it for long. The very logs that were holding the house up (and served as the framing and exterior walls) were rotting away, as was the wood under the eaves. And don’t even get me started on all of the codes and restrictions for a house that is tucked between the water and a county road.

We were stuck in a pickle. It would have been almost impossible to save the current structure, and yet, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to totally rebuild the house that held so many good memories. However, we could not live in it the way it was either. It was a heartbreaking decision. The worst part was that, to an outsider at a distance, it looked fine. Why would we take down a perfectly good house?

Sadly, the logs that held the house up were rotting away.

After many tears and discussions with family members, we decided it was time to let the house go and rebuild. As one of my brothers reminded me, it wasn’t the structure as much as the surrounding area and lake that held so many wonderful memories for us. And while my dad would have liked for the house to stay exactly the same, as he remembered it all of those years, he said it had served its purpose and gave us the green light to rebuild.

Building a shell for new memories

Once the difficult decision was made, it was easier to move forward with the build. However, either I had forgotten about the stress of building, or it is just that I am getting older, but it was not an easy project. It did not help that I wanted to retain some of the structure of the old house into the new one, such as building an accent wall with some of the beautiful old knotty pine paneling that my dad and grandpa milled and using an odd sized exterior door that my grandpa had salvaged and used in the log house. Thank goodness we had a very patient contractor.

Rebuilding the little lake house.
The contractor made an accent wall using the pine paneling from the previous house. Mr. U built a bench from the wood and used the previous pine fireplace mantel as a shelf. We still need to add coat hooks (left). Mr. U and I laboriously sanded down the old door from the previous home and had it stained before adding it to the new build.

Modern version of the old lake house

We still have a ton of outdoor work to do, but we plan to return the place back to its former glory during its heyday years.

This fall we sold The House that Built a Family and moved into our “little lake house.” Now this shell is patiently waiting to be transformed from a house into a home. It is waiting for family gatherings, BBQ’s, grandchildren playing, and lots of cozy evenings tucked in by the fire. It takes a lot of living and building memories to transform a house into a home. So now we are in the process of building new memories on a solid foundation of love and a life lived well at this spot by the lake.

Little lake life then and now.

Final thoughts

What a gift to be back living on this little lake. Of course, in my naivety of the 1960’s I did not fully appreciate what we had… I do now. It was here that I first learned the importance of being surrounded by family and how being wrapped in love soothes the inevitable wounds of life. I learned how spending time in nature heals our souls. This very place shaped who I am. I will be forever grateful to my mom and dad for being able to grow up at this little lake and now returning to live out our retirement years here.

Cheers to the retirement years!

The House that Built a Family

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

If the walls of this old house could talk, they would chatter about the family of six that lived here for 25 years. It would smile about all of the birthdays, family dinners, graduation parties, engagements, weddings, eggs colored and hunted, Christmas presents unfurled, games played, and laughter shared under its roof. And it would shed a tear for the times when the family was worried or heartbroken and hunkered down inside until the storm passed. A house that builds a family becomes more than brick and mortar. It becomes a shelter for the emotions of life. Its walls have protected the family, not just from the weather, but the bumps and bruises of living. This old house built our family.

Like most empty nesters, this big ole house that we raised our family in feels like a museum of memories. Memories that echo through the halls where four active boys were raised. But now there are not any more bedroom walls covered in sports posters, or pen hash marks on the door frame that marked the boys’ growth through the years. The antique pencil sharpener that is attached inside the closet no longer gathers shavings from frustrated homework assignments. This house has become too big and too quiet for us. It is almost a half hour drive to town and sits up a long driveway that Mr. U has to maintain and plow every winter. This home that we have loved and has protected us for so many years no longer fits this phase of life we are in. It is time to move on.

The memories

We started out with a hunk of land on a hillside and dreams of building a home where a family would share life together. Since that time, we have added so much to it. Not just the house itself and the obligatory grass and shrubs, but unique features that made it our own. There is the tree that Mr. U. planted for me when I graduated with my master’s degree. He has since added a fountain under it, using the old pump from his family farm. Speaking of the family farm, he hauled an ancient rusty truck up here and used it as an outdoor feature. When son #3 got married we put a basket of props next to it and used it as a fun photo “booth” location. Will the new owners treasure the old truck or think it’s an eyesore?

What has fondly become referred to as my “graduation tree” is hanging over the rock fountain with pump (left). Son #1 and his lovely wife using the props to pose for a pic in front of the old truck (right).

Shortly after we first moved in, we laboriously laid bricks down to create a back patio. We wanted something unique and inexpensive that we could do ourselves. Over the years, the moss has crept up between the bricks giving it a Tuscan feel. Ten years ago, our boys helped Mr. U build the pergola over the brick patio. Son #1 was getting married here and we needed a space that would define the patio and yard. Will the new owners see the charm in the weathered pergola and moss filled bricks or will they pull it all out?

Pergola over the back patio (left). It took years for the moss to grow around the bricks.

The beautiful lavender rhododendron and pink bleeding-heart bushes came from very small starts that my dad gave us off of his plants, back when he was much younger and still able to garden. The rhododendron has grown out of control and covers part of our bedroom window, blocking some of the view. But we can’t cut it back because every year a robin comes to lay eggs in the nest that is tucked into its branches. We observe the baby birds growing up from our bedroom window. How will the new owners know to save this?

The rhododendron from my dad’s start (left) and the robin’s nest that lives in it (right).

Speaking of animals, we have had plenty of wild ones stop by through the years. Some wanted and some not. We love the deer, turkey and occasional moose, but the moose can be a little scary, the deer eat everything, and the turkeys are messy. The little birds in our birdhouse have been a welcome addition. The voles in the garden and bats that thought the loft in our garage was a bat cave… not so much. And none of us will forget the leprechaun that moved into a stump on our property. The grands brought him miniature pancakes and milk in a tiny teacup, and he left them small gifts and candy. Who will feed the leprechaun when we leave?

You can barely see the little swallow peeking out of the birdhouse on the left. And while the leprechaun lived in the little house on the right, we were never able to spot him.

Being a farm boy at heart, Mr. U loves to dig in the dirt. So shortly after we moved here he added a large garden space with a deer fence around it. Because, well… they like to eat everything in sight. Several years later he built a rustic greenhouse to start his plants in the early spring when it is still too cold around here to put anything in the ground. We hung little lights in it, and it became a unique part of the landscaping. There are few things quite as satisfying, or delicious as picking fresh raspberries, vegetables and herbs to add to a meal.

Mr. U’s lovely garden has supplied us with fresh food for years.

Our most recent addition was the pizza oven and sitting area. It has been such a great Gathering Place. We have cooked hundreds of pizzas in it and shared many conversations under the warmth of its embers. We have even tried our hand at baking Bread in it. We will really miss the pizza oven. Several people have asked if Mr. U will build another one at our new home, but he says it is doubtful. It was A LOT of work to build, and pizza nights can take a lot of prep time and clean up afterwards. I think it just might be one of the many memories that we carry away with us from the house on the hill.

Mr. U. smiling in front of his pizza oven.
The twins throwing pizza dough (son #3 left and #4 right).
Son #2 (far left) is the creative genius behind our pizza toppings. He came up with the favorite S’mores pizza.
The famous S’mores pizza is bottom left. And no, that is NOT what the pizza paddle is for!

Moving on

We have spent the last couple years slowly going through the arduous process of sorting through 44 years of Stuff. Stuff that has been packed into every crevice and cranny of this old house. As I have gone through every single item, deciding what to keep, give away or throw, I have also relived our lives. And I have shed a lot of tears. Tears of appreciation and tears of sadness for that part of our lives that we will never be able to live again.

Now the sorting, cleaning and small repairs are almost done, and the house went up on the market last week. A plain house that became our home. For a home does not just happen overnight. It takes years of living life in it and having family and friends share gatherings in it. And slowly, over time, a house morphs into a home. Then one day, we decide that home no longer fits our lifestyle, and we need to move on. It is a bit like leaving a close relative behind. This home helped build and shape our family and I will be forever grateful for the years we spent here. Thanks for walking with me down memory lane and sharing the house that built a family.

The sun sets at our home on the hill.