The Plan: since we were going to be doing a lot of tiling as part of fixing up our house to sell, I wanted to get some practice. My sister, Lillie, wanted to tile the backsplash in her new kitchen. It seemed like that would be great practice for me, so in January, I flew out to Denver to visit Lillie.

I promise this won’t be the only post this week like it has been the past 2 weeks. Oops. So much has been going on and so many decisions and things swirling around that I have been overwhelmed and when that happens, I just stop. I shut down. I get stuck. Basically exactly the opposite of what needs to happen.

I got to see my parents AND my sister and brother-in-law this weekend and it was awesome. It was only for 24 hours, but we packed in everything we could. Lots of canoe trips and talking and gin and tonics. My perfect weekend.

To be fair, I wrote this on Monday night, so I’m sticking by my title.

I’ve been away from this space for awhile. I stayed away intentionally because I had no idea what to say.

Things are hard right now, for so many. People are struggling from the shutdown and the pandemic. They’re losing their business, their homes, their livelihoods. And even during these struggles, in North Carolina our numbers continue to rise. We’ve hit record hospitalizations and record percentage of positive tests so many times over the past week I’ve lost count. Even as we continue to reopen.

I had surgery last Friday for advanced carpal tunnel. I decided to get both wrists done at the same time (since they both had to be done eventually). I convinced myself that I would be back to work on Tuesday. Spoiler alert: that didn’t happen.

I’ve talked a little about how, once the work on the foundation is done, we plan to do almost all of the rest of the work the house needs ourselves. A plan my father has laughed at, but whatever. We’ll show him.

This weekend we started planning the first project we’re going to tackle. The floors in the kitchen and downstairs bathroom are cracked and have holes all in them, so they’re going to have to be replaced.

The fact that we were moving somewhere was not a surprise to our families. Chris and I had been discussing moving for so long, both of our families had heard us mention the possibility of us going to various places. When we finally announced last fall that we were going to Hawaii, well, that was a surprise to everyone.

I’ve read DIY blogs for years. Long before I actually owned a home, I watched with fascination and awe as makeovers came together and the most incredible before and after photos were revealed.

This is not one of those. Of course, I finally start a blog and the first “before and after” I get to post is of a dank, dark basement and crawlspace. Sigh.

Foundation work on our house in Durham continues. And the list of things we will be doing ourselves after the foundation work is done continues to grow. And while it’s a frustrating place to be in, knowing we can’t sell this house for another 5-6 months, we keep reminding ourselves that the end goal is Hawaii and it will be worth it.

This is not an easy post for me to write. Partly because, although this seems crazy since we are about to completely uproot our lives and move to Hawaii, but I don’t do that well with change. It’s true, just ask Chris. And I REALLY don’t do well with the unknown.

Chris and I have been sharing bits and pieces of our plans with different people, but we are finally ready to share all of our plans and how we got here with the world.

Lots of people decide to change their lives and move and just pack up their house and take their stuff with them. It makes sense. But Chris and I have chosen a different route. Before we even decided that it was Hawaii we wanted to move to, we knew we wanted to get rid of 99.9% of our stuff and just start over from scratch. So how did we get to that decision?

Before we decided to move, back when we were still trying to figure out what we wanted to change, we debated about whether we could change our lives enough where we were, or whether we needed to strike out to somewhere else. Central to that decision was our house.

In what is perhaps the most unsurprising announcement ever: March 2020 threw us and all our plans for a loop. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that for 99.99% of people in this world, 2020 is not going as we planned. For some, it’s mild annoyances. For others, lives have been changed, livelihoods destroyed, and families torn apart. To say it’s been a challenging time is an understatement. To sum up my feelings: 2020 can go f*ck itself, am I right?

Chris and I have lived in our house in Durham for almost 11 years. We were living in a rental house (about 4 blocks away from our house) in June 2009. 2008 had been a big year for us: I graduated law school, Chris started a new job, I took the NC Bar Exam (and passed!), Chris proposed, and then as soon as I found out I passed the Bar, I started a new job. And shortly after we started wedding planning for a September 2009 wedding. You know what was not part of our plans? Buying a house.

Once we started telling people about our plans, the first question we got was, “Why Hawaii?” And the second question was always, “Have you been there?” Up until mid-March, the answer to the second question was, “No, but we leave on March 31st to go there for 2 weeks to make sure we like it!” Obviously our plans, like so many others, were derailed, but that’s another story.

Already in this process, I’ve learned a lot. A lot about me, about Chris, about our marriage. And if there is one thing that I could share with people that I’ve learned so far it’s this: make your life what you want.

So here we are. We’ve figured out that what we have and where we are now aren’t working. Now what?