"It's not how long you've been gone, it's how many kitchens you've organized in between."

One time when I was still living at home, one of my sisters was visiting and had trouble remembering where to put away a certain pot. I gave her a hard time saying that she hadn't been away for that many years. And she joked, "It's not how long you've been gone, it's how many kitchens you've organized in between." I'm beginning to be that way myself. I walked into my Mom's kitchen last night intending to grab a paper towel, and had to pause for a moment to remember where she kept them. (On the inside door of the cabinet below the sink.) I've learned the pot-and-pan layout for essentially 6 different kitchens since the last time I was living at home full time, so I guess that's my excuse.

Mom and Dad are not the type of people to keep things the same, so over the years there have been a number of changes around the home farm. But this time around the changes are the most drastic. The 50 year old house, built my grandfather, is not in good shape. For one thing the brick foundation has been buckling for years, causing water problems in the basement and ruining the carpet in the 1/2 that was finished down there. The time had come for extreme majors, so this winter my parents tore out all the wall paneling and carpet, and a foundation recovery crew came in and braced the foundation with large steel plates. The plates are connected to a rod which extends 10 feet away from the house and has another large steel plate on the end, so that if the wall wants to buckle it has to pull 10 feet of dirt with it. The plates are placed at frequent intervals all around the wall. Pealing away the paneling and carpet revealed to the naked eye just how bad the buckling and cracks were, and it's pretty scary. But it should hold now.

However, when the basement was finished it had one bedroom and what was essentially Mom's work room, with the sewing machine, her office space, and the piano. Dad said we went from 1800 feet of finished space to 1200 feet. So they sent off to the auction two sets of bedroom furniture (including "mine") and kept what they felt was the best set. One of the upstairs bedrooms has become Mom's office and sewing space, and the piano has gone into the living room. So my bedroom is the only guest bedroom now with this bed that's not my bed, and the baby crib is set up in one corner, and there's no dresser at all, and there's an extra mattress leaning against the wall. Meanwhile a section of the ceiling in that room, which has been buckling for my entire life (it's this ancient weird paneling ceiling) is now at an almost alarming angle. I suppose the worst that will happen if the paneling falls down is a bunch of insulation dumping on the bed - it's not the actual ceiling structure that's the problem. But still.

And the big project for the summer is helping my dad finish the addition to the house. They've already gotten someone to pour the concrete foundation for it; we're trying to get the shingle siding off the side of the house and the floor laid on the foundation, and then when the professional finally gets here in July, all he has to do is the difficult stuff like building the walls and making them fit tightly against the old house. Until the addition is finished, the mess inside the house won't get sorted out.

And there are two big trees that we've lost, the first because of the work they did on the foundation, and the second because of the addition to the house. One was the old tire swing tree, and one was the old regular swing tree. We used to have 6 trees and one cherry tree in our yard; this latest chopping brings us down to 2 trees and the cherry tree. Luckily so far the treehouse tree has remained intact. Mom and Dad have planted more trees, but it will be a long time before they're as big as the 4 that we lost, and I would be very sad if the grandchildren had no trees to climb, since that was one of my favorite childhood activities.

So with the huge upheaval that's going on around here, my whole long post a week or so ago about being the one to redo my room is largely irrelevant. They didn't touch the posters on the wall but they changed all the furniture - and just about everything else in the house! It's kind of amusing actually.

The one nice thing is that having the piano upstairs makes it easier to just randomly sit down and play. Well not easier so much - it wasn't much effort to go downstairs, although it would be now since they closed up the spiral staircase so you'd have to go the long way around through the back steps - but just more inviting. And Mom and Dad enjoy hearing me play, even though I make a lot of mistakes. They don't really get to hear anyone use the piano except when I come home. I mean, all of my sisters and I can play the piano, but I'm the only one that really has much downtime when I'm here. When the other three come they are coming for a more specific reason, and they don't usually spend the night, since they live close enough to just go home. So they never really get around to sitting down and playing. And Mom can play, but she doesn't have much time, and if she does, it's never when Dad's around to hear it.

In fact I think I'll go play now - or at least right after I shower.