The eye of the storm

I'm adjusting to my new house in North Carolina right now.  We arrived a few days ago with a 15 foot U-Haul that Shawn drove, while I drove his car.  We brought the various and sundry knick-knacks that I had scooped out of view and packed into boxes when we began to try to sell our IL house, as well as a good proportion of our clothing, some sheets and towels, most of my pots and pans, eight place settings of Pfaltzgraff, the contents of my utensil drawer, the vacuum, and our computers.  Shawn also threw in a couple TVs and his ham radio equipment, along with a number of things from the garage: the mower, for instance, and his power saws.  Oh, and I brought a giant bin of things I call, "writing," as well as two extremely heavy bins full of family pictures.

Yes.  And we brought my computer desk.  For Shawn's workspace, we brought our big oak kitchen table, and we also brought the six heavy, library style chairs that go with it.  Let me tell you, we have been thankful for those chairs; most of them have found wonderful uses far from their mother table.

We brought our leather sectional, which is looking a little worse for the wear after this move and the last one.  It fits beautifully in the upstairs family room here, though, and will probably never leave this space, because it was quite hard on the stairway coming up.  We also brought our leather recliner, which did not fit anywhere in our last house, and had been relegated to the basement for the past six years.  Presently it presides in a nook at the top of our stairs, but it will eventually go into Shawn's workspace, when we get the rug situation figured out.

We transported the oak bedroom set that Shawn's parents gave us when we got married.  It is in the primary guest bedroom upstairs: queen bed, dresser with mirror, chest of drawers.  We sleep on a king-sized mattress on the floor in our bedroom downstairs, using coolers for nightstands.

That's basically it... except for a bookshelf my dad made for me, and a few boxes of books--the only boxes I haven't unpacked, because I'm not yet sure where I want them, and books, being heavy, are a pain to rearrange.

There is a peace in all this.  Shawn said today, "Except for the fact that there isn't anywhere to sit, I am enjoying this minimalist lifestyle."

I feel very peaceful here, so far away from all my "stuff."  I still would like to bring the dining room set, and my china, and a few sundry things that I miss now and then, but really, it is peaceful to have so few things around, to know exactly what I have, and where it is.

Today, as I unpacked a couple of the last boxes we have, I thanked God for this impetus to inventory my belongings.  It's a job I hate, and have avoided for years and years.  But it is good, good to take inventory and good to release things that are neither beautiful nor useful.  I hope and pray that things I discover and give away can somehow be a blessing to someone.  I hope and pray that I am not simply defiling the environment with things that will be dumped into a landfill.  As I unpacked my boxes of knick-knacks, I looked at them numbly, and wondered why I had brought them, and figured it was a good exercise to prepare me to have better discernment in the next (and final) phase of packing.

With so little stuff, and so far away from life as I am used to knowing it, I have a lot of time to think.  Actually, my thinking time began with the drive out, when I spent 14 hours behind the wheel of Shawn's Honda Accord, by myself.  I thought about many things, and I listened to my Scripture Lullabies and to Colin Smith sermons on CD.  I prayed about my fears, and I prayed for help with the drive, and I prayed prayers of praise and thanksgiving.  It is so nice that God is always with me, always a listening ear and a quiet voice of wisdom, even when I am otherwise alone.

At the end of our drive, it was getting on towards 2 a.m. and I was exhausted.  We drew near to our home, driving a twisty back road through a Carolina forest in the dead of night, and suddenly a deer leapt into our path.  Shawn veered to avoid it, and I watched, numb and exhausted, slowing down to give space for Shawn's maneuvers and to look for any additional deer.  Sure enough, a tiny deer, about the size of a large dog, materialized from the shadows and darted in front of my car.  I slammed on the brakes, causing my computer to fly forward from the back seat with a loud thump while my CD collection in the front seat slid in a myriad of chaotic directions.  I was sure I had hit the deer, but when we arrived in our new garage and turned on the lights to inspect the car, we could find no sign of damage.

I am thankful and tired, and I have very little to do, other than to figure out where is a good place to walk, and to work on picking out paint colors, and to shop for stools to use at our massive kitchen island counter.  The work, the busy-busy, the packing-purging-planning, the stress of trying to sell a home, these will resume when we get back to Illinois.