I am no longer a Californian.
I had this idea in my head that I am from where ever I have spent the most time living. I spent 16.2 years in California. I have now spent 17.1 years in Illinois. So, by my own way of thinking about things, I have ceased to be a Californian and am now an Illinoian. Is that how you say it? Is it Illini?
I don't really have an issue with this, although throughout the years I have staunchly defended my association with the Golden State. I grew up in the OC before it was the OC. I lived there during the San Fransisco earthquake and during the Los Angeles riots. Until my parents moved us away, it had never occurred to me that I would like anywhere else. While I really enjoyed growing up there, I see it now and it doesn't feel like home anymore. It hasn't for a while. It's changed too much without me there to change in conjunction.
There is a small issue in that Illinois doesn't really feel like home either. I have nothing against Illinois. With the exception of some brutally cold winters that I have never really gotten used to, it has treated me fairly well. I went to college here, I met most of my closest friends here, I met and married my wife here, my children are being born here. Yet, as a place, it still doesn't feel like home.
Really, I don't believe there is any place on earth where I could settle and think of as home. Home as a location is something I don't believe in as something that can be attained on earth. Where ever God is, that will be my Home. That concept isn't tied to a place anymore.
I'll admit that sometimes that makes me a little sad. I long for the settled feeling home brings, I want a place where I can complete relax, and I know now that I can only get small slices of that here, and mostly through the people I spend my time with, not where I spend it.
So, I'm no longer a Californian, but I'm not really an Illinoisian either. I'm a Christian.
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Sensitive Geek MAN: Our house is a very very very fine mess
One of the glories of home ownership is that you never really have nothing to do ever again. Not to say that there aren't times when I do nothing, just that it now is a choice rather than an actual lack.
Someone asked me the other day is I have a honeydo list. Not really, I said. More like a battle plan. Keeping our house in some sort of repair is a fairly consistent job. On top of that, the slow transformation of our house from a place we bought from others to the place we live adds even more work to the pile.
For example, we had a shed in back. It was not a well built shed, but it served its purpose. Unfortunately, last year, all manner of critter decided to start living underneath it. I tried everything I could think of to encourage them to stop, but they always came back. I'd get rid of one, a new one would come; I'd block off one hole, 2 more would pop up. It was a battle, one I would have been content to keep fighting indefinitely if most of the residents hadn't been skunks.
You don't mess with skunks.
So, I finally just tore the shed down. I won the war against the critters, but now I don't have a shed. All that stuff needs to go somewhere. So now it's in the garage, which means that the newest battle is to get the garage organized so we can actually walk around in there.
Those are the battles.
The transformations to where we live are choices we make to change things about the house that aren't really broken, but that we don't prefer. For example, my wife doesn't like our front and back doors. I want a garden. I also want a better, bigger patio. Those things are very slow, and about the time we finish them, it will be time to move, and then it will start all over.
Luckily, I usually like this sort of work, even the battles (mostly). I just wish that I got to do more of it by choice rather than necessity. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. What they mean is that the things that need to be done that we don't want to do make us desperate to find better, faster, more efficient ways to do them so that then we can spend the time we saved doing the things we actually want to do.
Which is why we build robots.
Someone asked me the other day is I have a honeydo list. Not really, I said. More like a battle plan. Keeping our house in some sort of repair is a fairly consistent job. On top of that, the slow transformation of our house from a place we bought from others to the place we live adds even more work to the pile.
For example, we had a shed in back. It was not a well built shed, but it served its purpose. Unfortunately, last year, all manner of critter decided to start living underneath it. I tried everything I could think of to encourage them to stop, but they always came back. I'd get rid of one, a new one would come; I'd block off one hole, 2 more would pop up. It was a battle, one I would have been content to keep fighting indefinitely if most of the residents hadn't been skunks.
You don't mess with skunks.
So, I finally just tore the shed down. I won the war against the critters, but now I don't have a shed. All that stuff needs to go somewhere. So now it's in the garage, which means that the newest battle is to get the garage organized so we can actually walk around in there.
Those are the battles.
The transformations to where we live are choices we make to change things about the house that aren't really broken, but that we don't prefer. For example, my wife doesn't like our front and back doors. I want a garden. I also want a better, bigger patio. Those things are very slow, and about the time we finish them, it will be time to move, and then it will start all over.
Luckily, I usually like this sort of work, even the battles (mostly). I just wish that I got to do more of it by choice rather than necessity. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. What they mean is that the things that need to be done that we don't want to do make us desperate to find better, faster, more efficient ways to do them so that then we can spend the time we saved doing the things we actually want to do.
Which is why we build robots.
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