I am still working double time at the office trying to finish work there. Our house still has no outside wall plans and I am still tired. Today was another hard day made all the harder by my being sick.

Some years back I decided that pressing yourself when you were sick made no sense. It especially makes no sense when you are contagious and trying to work around other people. Sometimes the contagion is the least of the problems. People who are sick are not always chipper and pleasant. Sometimes people who feel bad even when they try not to, can be grumpy, sad or mad.

Tonight I am left with sad. I passed mad at the speed of light sometime a couple of days ago. I don’t get mad all that much. It is not too appealing to me, more appalling, really. Grumpy? We have refined that to an art form in our family.

There are stories about toddlers in our family telling others that they should leave them alone they are feeling grumpy. Of course when a 4 year old says it it comes out gwmpy and all you can do is laugh. We have refined laughter to an art form in our family too. It is fine to be grumpy as long as you put out your “I’m grumpy” signs so others can with loving intent laugh at you until you are less grumpy. Sometimes if the grumpy is particularly grumpy the laughing is not appropriate and I would like to think we know that boundary. Still, being grumpy does not get you into much trouble in our family close or extended and from the youngest to the oldest.

But tonight I am not feeling grumpy. I am feeling sad. I am feeling sad that I don’t have a house. I am feeling sad that we don’t know what it will look like since we are struggling to figure out the right outsides for the house in order to meet the fire and other building codes local and national. It would be easier had I not thought we would be in the dirt by now. Thankfully there is no equipment sitting up there with the motor running. That would be even more sad.

This is a resigned sad, one that has reached past the point of having an opinion and just toward getting something done. My spouse and I are both weary, it has been 10 months and we want to settle back down and not have to try to live our lives contained by another.

The house where we are was a perfect find for us. It is close to our old house and has many of the characteristics of our old house. The office has the same view as our old house did and our house-to-be will have. It has an open floor plan and we used a bedroom for a converted den just like we did in our old house. The benefit of using the bedroom for a den is that we can get it warm quickly so when we are resting or eating dinner on our knees we can be warm without have to heat a large amount of the house.

For me, though, I will never get used to being here. I still turn in the wrong direction to get food out of the refrigerator. I go the refrigerator looking for something then realize it is a plate that I am seeking ad we don’t have those in the refrigerator. Sometimes I just stand in the middle of the kitchen  and wait for reality to show up. I feel like a dog shaking its head looking for clarity in an unclear situation.

Perhaps that is the best description of were I feel where we are. We are in an unclear situation. We don’t fit into our temporary home because it is chocked full-furnished and we don’t have a place to put our things as they arrive on the UPS and FedEx trucks for our new house. I finally have just cut loose my need for order or neat appearance. I just focus on clean and get things as neatly stacked as I can. It was a shocking and difficult fact for me to grasp that I would have to live with less than perfectly arranged things in my home. In the past my home might be dirty (not the sinks and bathrooms) but it was rarely stacks and stacks. That would have made me very grumpy indeed.

So, chalk one up for not mad or even grumpy. Chalk one up for being able to know I am sad. Each mark on that chalk wall is lovingly placed but also takes energy and that must be respected.

I suppose that the key this whole experience of this fire and indeed perhaps the expedience of being human.