March 31, 2011. Moving Day Day. It is about 35 degrees, cold and sunny but I am grateful it isn't raining. We are moving into our farm house on 10 acres in southwestern Michigan. My husband's dream. Not mine. Not today anyway. The movers can't pull the van into the driveway so four men spend the day carrying all our furniture up the driveway, either by hand or with a dolly. I spend the day in the driveway pointing and saying, "Put that in the barn," or "put that in the garage," or "put that in the house." It takes 10 hours. I am exhausted and cold.
My sister and her husband have come up from Florida to help us move in. At the moment I don't know what I would do without them. My sister has put herself to work in the kitchen. She tirelessly unpacks, decides where to put things, and cooks lunch for 10 people. There are four of us, four movers, and two teen-aged boys who have stopped by. One of them used to live here and is picking up the last of his things. They happily wolf down their Frito pies.
My husband and I, 68 and 59 respectively, have come here from a very large home in Madison, Wisconsin, population roughly a quarter of a million, to live in Delton, Michigan, population roughly 7,000. But that's a rural population spread out over a wide area. When you drive around here it looks like the population can't be more than 500 or 600 people. If that.
We are retiring.
We are down-sizing.
We are going to have a large vegetable garden.
This is the plan. Right now all I can think about is how exhausted I am and why on earth did I let my husband talk me into buying a house that's 140 years old?
68+59=127. You guys overshot by 13 years.
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