Quiet On The Home Front

The first week of school is done, and SO ARE MY RENOS!!!  We all literally jumped for joy!

While I am glad to no longer have strange men walking to and fro in my home, the house now is (as I had feared would happen), very quiet.  I am trying to busy myself hanging pictures back up and rearranging furniture, but Ben is very noticeably gone.

One of the renos I have longed to do since the day we moved in was to tear down all the cutouts on the “feature” wall in our family room.  Neither of us could ever figure out what to put in there, but Ben hated change and hassle and so somehow it never got done.  This is what the wall looked like.  Blech.

It was one of those spaces that collected junk and I hated it immensely.  Anyway, when all was said and done I decided that feeding my kids and putting them through university was probably more of a priority then moving the fireplace and filling in those cutouts.  So instead I had it painted, and this is what it looks like now:

If you look closely on the left you will see this:

And if you look closely next to Ben’s picture you will see this:

When Ben was cremated I did not want any of his ashes separated, but recently the thought of putting all of him in the ground is no longer sitting well with me.  I just can’t bear the thought of truly being without him, so I had this little urn made so that a small piece of Ben will always be with us.  When I join Ben, these ashes will be put back with the rest of his ashes.

I also made some changes in the kitchen which used to look like this …

… and now looks like this ….

Much improved, yes?   (Although I love the first picture because of all the people that were in my house.  Plus, Ben was alive when that picture was taken, so there’s that too.) Getting the cupboards painted was in fact something Ben and I had planned to do, so I’m pretty sure he would approve.

Anyway, the renos are completed (or least as much as I could afford) and so now I suppose I will have to find something else to occupy my time.  Sitting around talking to Ben as though he were here will probably end up with me in the nut house.  Knitting, anyone?