Remembering This Moment: Housework

Remembering This Moment -- a weekly series.

To learn more, go here or here. 

To see more in the series, look under Memory Keeping.

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We bought this house a little over a year ago.

It isn't a lot of house.  It is in need of a lot of repair.

But it is our house.

It is our home.

We, and most especially Aaron, have worked so hard to get us here.  We are a single income family,  and we live in Southern California.  This house represents sacrifice.

I want to remember that.

I want our children to know that it isn't how big your house is, or how perfect it looks, but how much love you put into it and how much love there is inside of it.

I want them to remember this.

Aaron prepping the house for the last coat of stucco before it gets painted.

James and William peer out their bedroom window to watch Daddy at work.

I want to remember the ugly paint color.  The shutter "shadows".  The cracks.

The boys standing in the windows that have no screens.

I want to remember how it was when we were a young family, starting out and doing it ourselves.

I want to remember where we've been.  And who we are.  I want to laugh at how bad it all looked and how we let our kids hang out the windows in their underwear.

I want to remember my Dad coming up to help Aaron.  It was his idea in the first place, this restuccoing it all instead of patching.  He assured us we'd be happier.

I want to remember how he taught Aaron how to mix the stucco and how they came up with a system for putting on and smoothing the stucco that made them both happy.  I want to remember them, 2 of the best men I know, taking care of me in this way.

I want to remember my dear, sweet man taking a day off work so he could do more work.

Housework.

There is still so much left to do.

But we're getting it done.  One wall at a time.

What will you remember this week?

Love from,

Greta