I am out of gas.

Every day, Monday through Friday, we get up and go to the house and start working. On the weekends, we take time off from the house, sort of. This past weekend we spent all day Sunday shopping for items for it. We still aren’t sleeping there; we’ve been sleeping on air mattresses on the floor of my brother and sister-in-law’s living room. They have been nothing but welcoming, gracious, and kind, but I miss sleeping in a bed. I am tired of living out of a suitcase and having no space of our own.

I am just tired, period. By the time I can get to the library (the only place I can connect to internet with my computer), I am too tired to write anything. I am too tired to think.

So, I am officially on a break here on the old blog. I’ll catch up with you after I return home. Not sure exactly when that will be yet, but not until August. I do post small updates on Instagram, if you’d like to follow along there. Appreciate those of you who are blogging through the summer. I sometimes get to the party late, but I enjoy reading what you’re up to.

I thought that Texas broke me. Hah!

The day after completing our 5-day driving marathon through Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana, we began working on our house renovation project. In a major heatwave, with faulty air-conditioning.

Why was the air-conditioning faulty? Rats. Rats chewed more than 25 holes in the AC ducts in the attic, so much of the cool air was escaping into the attic, rather than coming down into the house. Add to that constantly opening doors (Cane and his brothers were replacing all of the plumbing) and little insulation because we’ve stripped many of the walls back to their (termite-chewed) shiplap beginnings.

It reached 86 degrees inside every day for the first three days, until Cane crawled up into the attic and taped over the holes. Then it was more like 82, until yesterday when the temperatures finally dropped a bit.

I spent the first four days in the kitchen, cleaning cabinets and drawers covered in years worth of greasy filth.

On the fifth day, we took the day off. I proceeded to have a complete meltdown. I was physically miserable, suffering culture-shock, and feeling homesick. I remember being homesick only one other time in my life–when I was 18 and took a school trip to Washington, DC. I anticipated many of the challenges this trip/project would throw at me, but homesickness was not one of them.

I would like to say that I’m doing better, that as we make progress on the house I’m getting to a better place. Some days, some moments, that would be true. But what I’m finding is that the hardness of this situation is something that comes and goes. Sometimes I’m doing OK, and then I’m not. It doesn’t take much to knock me down.

There’s much in this experience that is positive. I’m sure I’ll be grateful for many things in it when the house is renovated and Cane’s mom is living in it. It feels good to begin to see progress. But I’ll sure be glad when I get to go home again. I’ve always known I’m a homebody, but I have a whole new understanding of what that means.